


The Very Polite Commander

by Davinahyde



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Anal Sex, Betrayal, F/M, First Kiss, First Time, NSFW, Oral Sex, Sex Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-16 05:19:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10564422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davinahyde/pseuds/Davinahyde
Summary: Evelyn Trevelyan is the leader of the Inquisition, a daughter of the aristocracy, a former Circle mage, and deeply infatuated with the Commander of the Inquisition’s forces, Cullen Rutherford.Cullen Rutherford knows he can't have the Inquisitor. He is her social inferior. He works for her. He’s a lyrium addict.It doesn't matter. He still wants her.So he hires women to let him work out his sexual fantasies about the Inquisitor. He pays them to let him call them "Evelyn" and he pays them to leave when they’re done.Evelyn finds out what he's doing. She wants to know why he wants them and not her. And one night she substitutes herself for the woman he's hired. She keeps going back.Cullen doesn't know where this new woman came from, but he doesn't care--he cannot get enough of her.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> NSFW. 
> 
> So, this story does begin off with the darling Commander banging other women, so if that kind of thing upsets you, don't read it.

From the first moment Evelyn Trevelyan saw the Commander, she fell in love. She had always fancied herself quite the realist, but she now understood what women talked about when they used the word _swoon_. 

It was hard not to—goodness, just look at the man. Unbelievably handsome, and tall, and built like one of the marble statues she was not supposed to look at too long in the museum. She had seen quite a few Templars exercising with their shirts off, and they had either been slim young men or overbuilt monsters. Not the Commander, though: his torso was defined by muscle and grace. His legs looked just as powerful. He was smart and had an instant grasp of every situation strategically and tactically.

The most amazing thing about the Commander, though, was how polite and soft-spoken he was. He always stood at attention and spoke carefully in that beautiful voice of his and when he greeted her he bowed his head. The one time she had looked at him suddenly and found him looking at her, he had blushed and immediately looked down.

She wondered how soon was too soon to propose marriage to someone.

Would it be awfully forward of her to ask if he had any feelings for her too? She never got to speak to him when they weren’t at official business. How was she going to make a time for the two of them to speak, alone? 

Well, he always worked in his office late into the night. Maybe she could stop by then. And maybe it would be late enough to give him the idea.

~ O ~

The first time Cullen Rutherford saw the way Evelyn gazed at him with undeniable admiration, he thought, _Get away from her before you do something you regret, man_. 

Because most of the time he saw the Inquisitor he imagined bending her over the War Table or any other piece of furniture. Or forcing her on to her knees. Or better yet having her _beg_ to be on her knees.

She was so soft. Not in a weak way—Maker, he had seen the results of what she had done taking on demons and Venatori and Orlesian nobles. No, her way of looking at the world was soft, kind, lovely. Even after everything that she had done and she had experienced, she could still look at him with those large eyes of hers and seem to promise the world to him. 

Someone like him would tear her apart. His nightmares. His lyrium cravings. And, worst of all…well, simply put: his desires. Which had gotten ever more insistent after Evelyn had arrived. Soft, kind, noble Evelyn.

He had found one way to deal with the side of him he never wanted Evelyn to see.

He called the young lieutenant Hansen into his office and handed him a note. He liked Hansen. Very dutiful and trustworthy. The lieutenant nodded and took the note, knowing exactly where to take it.

At nine that night there was a soft knock on the door of his office. A woman in a black cloak entered. 

“In the light,” Cullen said.

She came closer, until she entered the circle of light, and she threw back the hood of her cloak. She wasn’t bad looking—cute enough, with a little nose and big brown eyes. Not dramatically pretty, like the Inquisitor, but that was for the best, he thought. The woman wore too much makeup, but he didn’t care about that. No, what he cared about was that Madam Serena had sent a blonde, just like he had requested. Her hair was shorter and curlier than Evelyn’s, but he could make do with that.

Cullen had decided to stop lying to himself about what he was doing when he hired these women. There was a very specific itch he needed to scratch. 

“Take off your cloak,” he told her. 

She dropped the cloak to the floor. She wore a low-cut dress that was probably a size too small for her frame, the better to show off her figure. She had large tits and a tiny waist. Oh, he was going to enjoy her.

He sat on his chair and stood her in front of him. He reached up to undo the ties keeping her bodice in one piece and her breasts sprang free, large and round and heavy. He pushed the bodice down around her waist and then pulled her forward. He drew one nipple into his mouth while his hand worked the other one into a peak. 

“Undo my belt,” he growled, and her small hands reached down. Once the belt and buttons were unfastened, she pushed down the top of his trousers and he lifted his hips to let her get the material out of the way. She grabbed his cock and jacked it firmly, twisting at the top in the way he liked. 

“Get on,” he told her, and she sank on to his cock. Her little cry of anguish as his length slid in really made him happy, he thought. He held her at the waist and went back to sucking her nipples. “Hold on to the back of the chair.”

Her hands gripped the back of the chair on either side of his head. 

His hips began thrusting upward into her, his arms lifting her over and over.

He put the money on the desk and told her to go. 

She would understand she had been paid extra not to tell anyone what the Commander might have wanted. Or what he might have said.

~ O ~

On the walkway outside the Commander’s office, Evelyn flattened herself against the wall, so she wouldn’t be seen by the woman leaving. 

When she had walked up to the door, she had peeked inside first, to make sure he was there, and that’s when she had seen them. Cullen’s face buried in her tits while she rode him, bouncing up and down, her skirts covering the whole thing.

The Commander had done that. The Commander had hired a whore to service him in his office while—

While Evelyn couldn’t get him to talk to her about anything other than Inquisition business.

She wanted to shriek in rage. She was going to have a word or two with him, all right. 

Instead, the next night she returned, and she saw a similar game play out.

It wasn’t the same woman: this one was taller, much more slender, almost sylph-like who stood by his desk. But, Evelyn was hard pressed not to notice, she was also blonde. 

If he liked blondes so much, why didn’t he like her? What did he like about those women so much? 

His hands went up and down her sides, feeling her curves, and then he walked around to stand behind her. He undid the ties of her dress and her sash and let them slide to the ground. She stood there, completely nude, and Evelyn watched as his hands touched the woman again, stopping to caress her breasts, then her hips, and then one of his hands was just visible in the shadows between her legs.

He said something, and the woman spread her legs apart. Then she bent forward and grabbed the sides of the desk.

Behind her Cullen undid his trousers and started plowing her from behind. The entire desk shook as he thrust. How hard was he driving into her? Evelyn wondered. The woman had an expression of definite delight on her face, even though her customer couldn’t see it. She was panting in time with the thrusts, her breasts shaking underneath her.

Evelyn mostly watched Cullen,  unable to believe he was doing this. In his office. _Without her._  

When he came, though, he said something that made Evelyn’s eyes widen as far as they could go.

Well, she couldn’t be sure he’d said what she thought he said. 

But it definitely looked like he had closed his eyes and said, _Oh, Evelyn_ , while pounding the hell out of that woman bent over his desk. 

The next day, the Commander, in perfect uniform and in good humor, greeted her in the War Room.

“You’re looking well, Commander,” Evelyn said. “Very well-rested.”

And right on cue, he blushed. “Yes, I slept better than usual last night.”

 _I bet you did_ , she thought. _That workout would have tired anyone._ It certainly had exhausted her after she went back to her rooms and played the image of the Commander in her head—although she mentally substituted herself for the woman underneath him.

“You must tell me your secret,” she said.

~ O ~

It took very little sleuthing on Evelyn’s part to discover the women came from Madam Serena’s—of course she had heard of Madam Serena’s, who hadn’t. And that a lieutenant who often delivered messages from the Commander was the one who went there.

She intercepted him on morning after he left the Commander’s office. He held the note he carried very tightly against his thigh.

“Hansen.” She held her hand out. “Give me that.”

“What? Oh, this? This is nothing, Your Worship.”

“ _Now_ , lieutenant.” 

Hansen handed it over. 

“Dismissed.” 

“But—”

Evelyn didn’t even bother to look at him again. She had learned a thing or two from the arsehole Commander about how to be a complete arsehole to underlings.

Hansen saluted and left. 

Evelyn took the note and walked to her apartments. She went to the window and unsealed the note.

 _9:00 blonde_ was all it said. That was definitely Cullen’s handwriting.

Evelyn crumpled the paper and its wax seal. Then she threw it in the fireplace, where it rapidly burned up.

_9:00. Blonde._

She couldn’t, could she?

She thought again of the image of Cullen riding that woman in a frenzy, then throwing back his head and saying _Oh, Evelyn_. 

Yes, she bloody well could do this.

She went to her wardrobe and looked at the dresses inside. All of them too fancy. All of them too well-known. She couldn’t wear any of those. 

Her maidservant, Nancy, came in to help her dress for the afternoon ceremony with the Marquis of Whatever. 

The maid was about her size. 

“Nancy?” Evelyn asked. “Do you have any clothing you don’t need any more?”

“Excuse me, mum?” Nancy asked.

Evelyn leaned toward her. “Leliana suggested I try to sneak out, to see how well the guards are trained,” she whispered. “I’ll reimburse you for the dresses, of course. I need something that looks lived in.”

“Oh!” Nancy said. She nodded. “I have a couple of dresses like that, mum. You don’t mind patching and all.”

“I certainly don’t,” Evelyn said.

Nancy delivered three dresses and an old, worn brown cloak. 

It took Evelyn almost no time to darken her hair a few shades with a black lotus tincture and add a few more curls to it than she normally had. As she sat in front of her mirror, she thought, _He is going to see through this._

She lifted the brush and dipped it into her pot of blushing powder. _Maybe he will. Let him_. 

~ O ~

At nine o’clock exactly, there was a knock on the office door.

“Come in,” Cullen said. 

The woman came in, wrapped in a faded old cloak. She approached his desk slowly, never lifting her eyes toward him. 

“Take it off. I want to see you,” he said.

She threw the hood off. In the candlelight she looked so much like Evelyn his cock got hard immediately and his pulse started racing. Then he shook his head. No, it wasn’t. Serena had simply outdone herself this time.

“Come over here,” he said. “You are amazing. Where did she find you?” 

The woman shook her head and kept staring at the floor as she walked closer to him.

He lifted her chin and she looked away. He knew the light in here was bad, but Maker’s breath, she looked so much like Evelyn he wondered for a moment if it was. He rubbed his thumb along her lower lip, wiping off some of the ridiculous quantity of lipstick she was wearing. She was wearing too much makeup in general, but maybe word had gone around what sort of look the Commander was actually looking for. Who they ought to try to look like.

He pushed the cloak off her shoulders and it puddled on the ground around her. She wore a worn but serviceable dress that showed off her curves. He ran his hands down her sides and over her hips. He went to the ties at the front of her bodice and opened it. Her breasts were perfect—much as he had imagined Evelyn’s to be, actually. He cupped her breasts in his hands and rubbed his thumbs over the nipples. They hardened almost immediately. So responsive, this one.

Then he looked back at her face. At the cupid’s bow mouth and that lipstick. 

“Suck me,” he told her.

He heard her intake of breath before she nodded and pushed the cloak forward with the toe of her boot. Then she knelt between his legs and reached forward—

“What’s this?” he said. He poked a bandage, wrapped around her left hand.

“I burnt my hand on the stove, ser,” she said, in a breathy voice. Not at all clear and crisp like Evelyn’s. Thank goodness. He had no idea what he would have done if she had had a similar voice.

The bandage on the left hand was a nice touch, though. Made it much easier to pretend she had the Anchor there.

Her hands undid his trousers and she bent forward to lick the front of his cock from the base to the tip. Her tongue felt exquisite. He ran one hand through her hair and cupped the back of her head. The illusion was almost perfect: he could imagine it was Evelyn there, licking and sucking with cock with more enthusiasm than skill. But truth be told, just having someone do it was all he needed. He dropped back against the headrest of his chair and felt her sweet mouth sucking on the head of his cock like she wanted to be there. 

“Oh, Evelyn,” he whispered.

The woman stopped for a moment—maybe what he said was a surprise.

“Go. Keep going,” he panted.

She went back to work immediately.

He felt his balls tighten and the orgasm that rocketed through him took him and the woman by surprise. She choked once as he ejaculated, but then she seemed to recover. She cleaned him off with her tongue and then wiped her own mouth with her thumb. She reached down to get her cloak.

He tapped the section of his desk right in front of his chair. “Sit here.” 

She perched her bottom on the desk and he lifted the hem of her skirt. Maker, the legs on this one. He wondered what she did all day—she certainly wasn’t sitting around Madam Serena’s eating bonbons, that was for certain. 

“Put your feet on my chair,” he told her. She lifted her knees and the skirt fell to her waist, exposing her cunny. He could make out her hair there was several degrees lighter than the hair on her head. Almost exactly the shade of Evelyn’s. “Lean back,” he told her, and she gripped the edge of the desk.

He leaned forward to put his mouth on her. Maker, she tasted so sweet. And she was so wet—from sucking his cock? He wished he could get hard again immediately, to feel that wetness enclosing him.

Instead, he licked at her, periodically sucking on her nub, until she began to rock back and forth and got even wetter. 

“Evelyn,” he said again and the woman began to pant louder.

He put his hands on her thighs to keep her pinned to the desk as she began to come, all the while moaning and panting. It was enough to get him hard again, so he pushed her back on to the desk, her head hanging off the front of it, and plunged into her, the warm juices slicking the way. The way her hair cascaded down and her well-toned thighs under his hands.

It took hardly any time at all for him to crest again, what with this woman who was clearly built to fulfill every single one of his fantasies. He came with a yell—he really hoped the night patrol did not get too close to his office, but there was nothing to do about it now.

Oh, Maker, what was going on? He rarely extended their stay beyond a simple fuck. But his head was wrapped up in how close this one resembled Evelyn.

He pulled out and then pulled her back off the desk. She leaned against the desk, her legs somewhat unsteady after that.

He picked her cloak off the floor and tossed it on his chair, before he got a small leather pouch of coins out of the top drawer of his desk. “Here.”

She weighed it in her hand. “Ser?” she said in that breathy voice.

“You’re not to talk about this. With anyone.” He knew he sounded like he was giving a military order, but he couldn’t help it. Word hadn’t made its way back to Evelyn. He desperately needed secrecy on this.

She nodded as she buttoned up the front of her dress. “Of course not, ser.” 

“Tell Serena I want you back tomorrow night.” Maker. He’d never done that before. Sometimes the same girl showed up, but never twice in a row, and he had never requested a repeat performance. But the fantasy was too good with her. This woman had the same face shape, almost the same hair color, the same body type. 

 _Fantasy’s almost too good, wouldn’t you say_? his inner voice said.

“Shut up,” he told himself, and he crawled up the ladder to his bed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evelyn Trevelyan hadn’t gone into this little adventure a virgin, but she might as well had been. Every sexual experience she had had before this belonged to a completely different category. 
> 
> Oh Maker, she thought. That was amazing.
> 
> And if Cullen Rutherford ever found out the woman was really her, he was going to kill her. He clearly could do so without much effort at all—it had taken him no effort whatsoever to hold her against the desk while…while he…
> 
> Well.
> 
> She could not possibly return to his office for a second assignation.
> 
> At this point, she wasn’t sure she could ever go into his office for a meeting without blushing uncontrollably.
> 
> =========
> 
> Evelyn has some thoughts on what transpired that night. 
> 
> Which is FINE, because she's never going to do anything like that again. EVER.
> 
> Also, Evelyn is a liar.

Evelyn closed the door to her quarters and sank against it. Her legs were shaking, her hands were sweating, and she wasn’t at all sure she would be able to sit down for a while.

Well.

_Well._

That had been…interesting.

Evelyn Trevelyan hadn’t gone into this little adventure a virgin, but she might as well had been. Every sexual experience she had had before this belonged to a completely different category. 

Oh Maker, she thought. That was amazing.

And if Cullen Rutherford ever found out the woman was really her, he was going to kill her. He clearly could do so without much effort at all—it had taken him no effort whatsoever to hold her against the desk while…while he…

Well.

She could not possibly return to his office for a second assignation.

At this point, she wasn’t sure she could ever go into his office for a meeting without blushing uncontrollably.

Maker, what that man got up to with his desk other than paperwork. She would never have guessed.

She tottered up the stairs into her quarters.

She felt somewhat gratified her suspicion that he thought of her while fucking those women turned out to be true. But that still left her with: why didn’t he just ask her? She clearly was willing—Maker’s sake, her mouth still tasted like his cock. And as for the rest of her body…

She went into her bathroom and began to run water for a bath. She heated it with a quick spell and then sank in the tub. She scrubbed her hair to get the black lotus rinse out and then combed it out while waiting for the rest of the aches in her body to cease.

She could not do that again.

~ O ~

The next morning in the War Room, Evelyn found herself getting nervous while waiting to see Cullen.

He knew. Of course he had to know. 

If he didn’t know, all it would take was one look at her and he would fucking know immediately what she had done.

“Inquisitor?” Josephine asked. “Are you all right? You look pale.”

“No, I’m fine. I didn’t sleep well,” she lied.

In fact, she had slept like an ancient warrior and woke up only because Nancy came with her morning cup of chocolate. All of her dreams had been variations on what she had done the night before. She had woken up aching and aroused and she really hadn’t wanted to get out of bed.

The door to the War Room opened and Cassandra and Leliana walked in, followed by Cullen, who had a fistful of papers in his hand. He looked the same as he always did, solemn, quiet, and polite.

The same as he always did.

He glanced at her and gave her the same quick smile he did every morning. Then he looked down.

He certainly had had no trouble gazing at her last night. Right before asking her to suck him off. 

“Good morning!” Leliana trilled.

Cassandra grunted. “Not so loud, please. Where are we with the building projects in the Western Approach?”

Cullen lay the papers on the table. “According to the captain in charge…”

Evelyn stopped paying attention. Soon enough she would have to go back to that sandy, varghest-filled wasteland to deal with the rest of the crap there. She could catch up on the important details during week-long ride there.

“If that meets with your satisfaction, Inquisitor?” Cullen said.

Really. Of all the phrases he could have chosen to use…  Evelyn quickly flipped from staring at him to staring at the table. “Um…I’m not really one to micromanage projects.”

“So, in three weeks we head back,” Cassandra said.

“Getting to Griffon Wing Keep is definitely our main problem at the moment,” Leliana said.

Evelyn snuck a glance at the man across the table and thought: _You might be surprised about that, actually._

Josephine held up a stack of cards and letters. “We have received more marriage proposals for the Inquisitor.”

Evelyn had never been particularly interested in marriage—she had always assumed at some point she would be married, but she had never thought much about the process. She knew girls who had read romances and dreamed of marrying a handsome prince—who undoubtedly looked much like the Commander, come to think of it—only to be married off to some old man who needed a new crop of children because his idiot sons had fallen off a bridge while drunk or something. And then Evelyn had been sent to the Circle and never given another thought to marriage again. Since joining the Inquisition, the very idea could not have been further from her mind.

“You have standing orders to burn those immediately upon receipt,” Evelyn said.

Josephine’s laugh always surprised Evelyn: she always suspected the dainty, delicate Ambassador would have a bell-like laugh, but instead it was rich and deep. “Aha, no, Your Worship. I wanted to show them to you because of what’s interesting about this batch.”

“What’s that?”

“They’re from marquises and comtes, Inquisitor. Not lords and banns.”

Evelyn was well-versed in the world of nobility. Lords were thick on the ground in Ferelden, Orlais, and the Free Marches. Comtes, less so. Marquises, even rarer. If Evelyn had received even one of those while still living at home with her family, her mother would have thrown the most lavish party seen in their town for some time—but only after sending an acceptance for her daughter’s hand immediately.

If comtes and marquises were asking for her hand, that meant the Inquisition was being taken seriously as a power in Thedas. When she started hearing from dukes, that meant they had really arrived.

Cullen had suddenly become very interested in making annotations on the papers in front of him. Ignoring it. Pretending he hadn’t heard. His only reaction. How very typical.

“Does higher quality paper stock not burn the same way, Josephine? Burn them. Send regrets first if you must, but burn them.” 

“You haven’t even—”

“There’s not a chance, Josie. The only thing I’m interested in right now is defeating Corypheus. The only thing.” 

And that’s when she saw it. 

Cullen stared off into space for a moment. Then he went right back to what he had been doing.

 _Oh, come on_ , she thought. _Stop it. You know marriage to some stranger is nowhere on my list of priorities._

Didn’t matter what he thought about that. Didn’t matter what he thought about anything. She was not going to go back to his office tonight. She couldn’t. It would be insane.

~ O ~

Cullen had his hands hooked under her knees to hold her up as he banged her quite thoroughly against the wall in his office.

She had been determined not to come back. It was too risky. It was ridiculous. This wasn’t what she wanted to do with him—at least, not with him thinking he was doing it to someone else.

But at seven she had found herself bolting down her dinner so she could get to her bathroom and do her hair again. She wore it up in a series of braids this time, the way the Inquisitor never did.

The first thing he did when she walked in was pull the braids out and then run his fingers through her hair to style it much the way she did during the day. “Keep your hair down,” he told her. 

Then he ran his hands down her body and lifted her skirt to caress her thighs. “Oh, Maker. You are so perfect.” 

He ran one hand up her leg to her cunt, where he found her already wet and wide for him. She had been for hours. He closed his eyes as he started to play with her, his fingers slipping from her button to inside her and back again, over and over. She had clamped her legs together, to keep his hand there.

He laughed and lifted a section of her hair with his other hand and put his mouth on her ear. “So greedy. So ready.”

He yanked his hand down and pushed her legs apart, then reached down with the other one to undo his trousers before lifting her up and pushing her against the wall, spreading her legs apart. 

So this was what her Circle mates had meant when they talked about “getting nailed to the wall.”

She had no idea how he had the strength to hold her like that, but he did, and his cock split her apart over and over again. She was pinned there, unable to move, unable to do anything except feel completely filled by him. 

His scratchy beard scraped her as he nuzzled her neck—oh, Maker, he couldn’t leave any marks there, how would she cover them up?—and periodically he moaned something.

She could barely hear him over the noises she was making though. Every time he thrust into her she felt another loud cry wrenched out of her, as though she were an instrument he was playing. This was too much. She couldn’t take this level of intensity.

He put his lips by her ear again. “You’re so loud, Evelyn. What if someone hears you? Finds us together? Me fucking you like this?”

And…that was all it took. She started coming at the very idea of someone finding them, the Commander knocked her against the wall in time with his hips.

Seconds after she finished, he held her against the wall even harder and let out a rather loud shout of his own as he ejaculated inside her.

After he pulled out, he slowly lowered her to the ground. Her legs were shaky from being held open so wide for so long. She immediately felt his seed start to slide out of her and between her thighs.

He took her by the hand and led her over to his desk, where he sat himself in the chair and then her on his lap. He twisted her torso around so he could open the bodice of her dress again and then push down the entire top of her dress, exposing her breasts. He cupped both of them, then pushed them up with those massive hands of his. First he sucked on the left one, bringing the nipple to a peak, before he left it under the tender ministration of one of his thumbs and going to suck the other nipple. With every pull on her breasts, she felt her cunt clenching in response. She brought her hand up to his familiar golden locks and gripped the back of his head, pushing him closer to her.

“I can’t get enough of you,” he muttered. 

He kept playing with her breasts for long enough and hard enough she felt like she was on the verge of another orgasm—without him so much as touching her! This was madness. 

One of his hands left the side of her breast and she whined at losing the contact. Then she felt him lifting the hem of her dress again until he could get that hand underneath. She widened her knees as far as she could to allow him access without twisting her breasts out of range of his mouth. 

His fingers slipped through the mess at the junction of her legs to reach her button again. 

She was slightly embarrassed by the intensity of the moan she let out when his fingers stroked her cunt in coordination with his lips and tongue working on her breasts. It took no time at all for her to start coming again, this time in a series of milder peaks that just seemed to keep continuing the more he touched her.

When she finally came down from her high, she found him staring at her intently, his hand still between her thighs.

“Stand up,” he told her. 

She stood. 

“Bend over the desk.” 

She bent forward over the desk.

He yanked her skirts up. “Spread your legs.” 

He started fucking her. He thrust so hard he lifted her feet off the floor. She felt completely unmoored. She was just there for him to use.

“Evelyn,” he whispered in her ear.

She felt a stab of jealousy at the thought of him thinking of someone else—even though that someone else was _her_.

She couldn’t let this insanity continue. She had to say something. No, more importantly, she had to do something—at the very least, let him know that she wanted him too, even if she never let him know what she’d done.

She felt her hips hit the side of his desk in time with his thrusts.

_Oh, Maker, yes._

~ O ~

The next night he was standing by his desk, which was still covered in the familiar piles of paperwork. He looked at her, his face shadowed by the single candle burning, and said, “Go upstairs.” 

Upstairs.

His bedroom. 

“Ser?”

“The ladder, there. Go up.” 

She had gone up the ladder before, one day when she was looking for him. She had been surprised by how spartan it was. The man owned so little. And he had a giant rip in the ceiling, letting all the cold air from the Frostbacks in.

Had he brought anybody else up here? she wondered.

She stood in the center of his room, not moving, not touching anything.

After a few minutes, he followed her up. She saw the outline of his curly hair. He just held himself on the ladder for a moment, looking at her.

“Take your dress off,” he told her.

As he got off the ladder, she shrugged the dress down and stepped out of the circle of material. Then she picked it up and folded it.

“Sit on the bed.” 

She sat down. The woolen blanket was softer against her bottom than she expected.

He took her face in his hand and turned it toward the hole in the ceiling, where the faint moonlight from the two crescent moons filtered in. His face was hidden in the shadows. What was his expression? Recognition? Anger? Lust? 

“Maker, you look so much like her.” 

She ought to say something, so she said, “So they tell me, ser.”

He opened the front of his trousers, and she bent forward to take him in her mouth. 

After she sucked him off, he used his mouth on her again, and then he fucked her twice more, the first time on her knees holding on to the bedpost, the second time with him on top of her. His powers of recuperation were incredible, she thought. The second time, she was on the verge of confessing everything as his body pushed her into his mattress.

So she got out of the bed and got dressed. Every night she came here, she stayed longer and longer. That way lay danger. 

“What time do you have to leave?” he rasped.

“I should go now, ser.” 

He picked the bag of money off the side table. He had definitely planned to have her up here, it seemed. “Tomorrow,” he said, and he yawned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for leaving me notes! I really appreciate hearing from readers!
> 
> Also, I don't post there much, but if you're on Tumblr, say hi: itsdavinahyde.tumblr.com


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen is having a harder and harder time keeping the two main women in his life--the one he wants and the one he's sleeping with--straight in his head. But it is too dangerous for him to think about it, because he doesn't like the way the signs seems to be pointing.

The best thing about waking up in the morning these days was that his headaches had lessened. Seemed like a joke, really, the sort of thing men might say to one another: “Still got that headache? Got the perfect cure for that. Swive a beautiful woman into the mattress as often as you can manage and you’ll be nice as ninepins.” But the cure seemed to be working exceptionally well. 

He wondered how much of it was the sex and how much of it was having an almost perfect illusion of being with Evelyn.

When Evelyn had first joined the Inquisition, she had that mark on her hand, disorientation and fear with what was happening, and definite resentment toward Templars for her years in the Circle. He understood that. He maintained his distance. He thought she was beautiful, with her blonde hair and her body and a face that seemed to be classic and perfect. But he wasn’t overwhelmed by any of it. He had known plenty of beautiful women without wanting them.

Then, little by little, he found himself craving more and more of Evelyn: her time, her attention, her touch. Every time she approached him to ask a question, the rest of the world fell away and all he could see was her.

When she closed the Breach and there was a party in Haven, Evelyn was thanking everyone for what they’d done with a quick hug and a few words. When she got to Cullen, he said, “Everyone wants a moment with you.”

She smiled and she wrapped her arms around him. He still remembered how it felt. And she whispered, “You might say I’m counting on that.” 

When she slid away from him, he reached for her hand and interlaced their fingers. “Evelyn,” he said. His voice sounded a little desperate, even to him. “I want to… You are—”

“You don’t even have to ask,” she said. “The answer is yes.”

At which point the alarm sounded.

Then she became the Inquisitor and anything developing between the two of them…that was all done with. He knew precisely what he should do, and so he did it. Managing his emotions was one of Cullen Rutherford’s strengths, after all. He packed his infatuation away and concentrated on the job he needed to be doing. Because while a minor noble escaped from a Circle with strange powers might be available to him, the leader of and symbol for the entire organization was not.

He discovered he still burned for her, though.

After a few weeks of being unable to think straight, he gave in and hired a woman to work out his energies with. It wasn’t the first time he had done that—it was almost expected in Kirkwall—but he hadn’t done it very often. He didn’t particularly like sex with a woman whose name he didn’t know and who left when they were done, but it sure eased his various aches quite a bit.

The first time Evelyn’s name escaped his mouth when he was fucking one of these women, he felt stricken. Oh Maker. What if she told anyone and Evelyn heard about it—

The woman put her finger over his lips. “That’s what you’re paying me for,” she said.

And after that, it was easy. Madam Serena had a talk with the girls and gossip never got out.

The woman he had been with the past few nights. He hadn’t slept so well since before… Well, since before he had been assigned to Kinloch Hold probably.

He slid down the ladder from his loft to his office and flipped through the pile of reports on his desk to find the ones he wanted to bring them to the War Room. 

He couldn’t believe he had taken her up to his private quarters last night. He had never brought anyone up there. He had kept the sex in his office and used his bed for sleeping.

The sex was much better with the softness of a bed, though.

Also, this way he didn’t have to clear off his desk every night. 

He dug through the pile of reports to pick out the ones about the bandits harassing shipments to Skyhold and what had already been done about them. 

The door opened and he snapped, irritated, “Close that door.”

“My apologies. Didn’t realize the wind was so strong.”

Evelyn. 

He stopped rifling his papers and stared at her.

Maker, what her presence did to his insides. Like he was a boy again.

Then he remembered who he was and who she was and he stood up.

She laughed. “Always so polite. Keep sitting.”

“What can I do for you, Inquisitor?”

“Talk to me.”

Oh, Maker. Had she found out— “Why? What’s on your mind?”

“Do I need a reason? All right. Because since we’ve come to Skyhold—since I’ve become the Inquisitor, really—you and I don’t talk very often. I miss spending time with you. We used to spend a lot more time together.”

Cullen wondered if his heartbeat was audible in the room or just in his own ears. It was true that they hadn’t talked about non-Inquisition things very often of late. How was he supposed to start a conversation with someone who had been raised so far above him in stature that their worlds barely intersected? It seemed the more otherworldly she became, the more he wanted her, and the less he knew what to do about it.

_You idiot, she’s here, she wants to talk to you, say something._

“Yes, I would like that very much,” he said. 

They stared at one another without speaking for a moment. The sort of silence that people rushed in to fill up, either with words, or with—

Evelyn grinned. “If you haven’t had breakfast yet, we could spend a few moments in the kitchens before yet another interminable War Room meeting.”

He chuckled at that. He also found the meetings somewhat dull, despite being there with her. It would be good to have her to himself, if only for twenty minutes.

And Maker knew he was extremely hungry after what the exercise he had had last night.

He scooped up the pages he’d been collecting. “Let me just take these with —”

The door to his office opened and Knight-Captain Harrington burst in.

“Terribly sorry, ser, but a brawl’s broken out in the second barracks cluster and we need you down there.”

Cullen looked at Evelyn, who pasted on smile and after a moment nodded at him. “Perhaps another time,” she said crisply. “Would you like me to take those with?” She held out her hand.

He nodded and handed her the reports he’d gathered. 

The rest of the day, Evelyn was in meeting after meeting. Once she looked up at him and grinned, then went back to whatever she was saying.

~ O ~

It was so dark in his loft. He wanted to see her face, the lines of her body. When it was so dark his hands and his imagination had to do all the work. He sat on the edge of the bed and reached to the side table. Not there.

“What are you looking for?” she asked.

“My candles,” he told her.

“Don’t. Hurts my eyes.”

He started to laugh. “The light hurts your eyes?”

She put her hand over his. She still wore the bandage on her left hand—she must have noticed he liked that. “It’s better if you don’t,” she whispered.

For a woman he knew so intimately, he realized he knew absolutely nothing about her. “What’s your name?”

She sat up and put her arms around him. “You have a name for me,” she said.

“I know what I call you. That’s not going to change. I need another name for you.” 

She laughed. “Then call me Evie. It’s close enough.”

Evie. That was just mean, he thought, not that that was his call to make. Maybe she was right. It was better for him not to know anything about her, just use her as vessel for his imagination. He spent hours with her every night, exploring every inch of her body, and still the only person he had in mind was Evelyn.

He bent down to nuzzle her neck. She stretched her head upward to allow him more access to her neck at the same time she spread her legs to allow him access to the rest of her.

He drew his finger across her bottom and she hissed quickly while her body tensed.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I’ve never…you know.”

“Oh,” he said, his finger still caressing her there. “Would you mind trying?”

After a moment, he heard her head rub against the pillow as she shook her head and whispered, “No.”

He reached for the tin of ointment he kept on the bedside table. “I’ll stop any time you want,” he said. 

~ O ~

After a full week of Evie’s nightly visits, Cullen’s entire body felt like a lightning mage had zapped him. He felt an intense, almost crackling energy course everywhere through his body. Even his back felt itchy and raw. There was no way he could force himself to sit inside, at his desk, doing paperwork. He should spar and work out as much of this extra feeling as he could before Evie returned that night. 

He was already screwing her three and four times every night. She would probably welcome him being a little tired.

He found the Iron Bull and Dorian lounging near the sparring arena. Bull lay back in the sun, his one good eye closed, while Dorian chattered on about something. 

“Are you here to save me from this?” Bull asked, not even opening his eye.

“Only if you’re interested in sparring,” Cullen replied.

“Oh, hell, yes,” Bull said, springing to his feet. “Can’t take much more about Tevinter etiquette.”

“You asked me about it,” Dorian said, deeply annoyed.

“Didn’t think you’d yammer on about that shit for that long.”

“There’s a lot to know on the topic. At least there’s one relatively polite man here for me to speak to. Hello there, Commander, you’re looking rather vibrant today. Care to work out some of your energy with me after you’re done with him?”

“Good morning to you too, Dorian,” Cullen said.

The Iron Bull immediately launched the attack, swinging his great sword, which Cullen met with his shield. Damn, that Qunari could hit. Cullen knocked the blow back, and when Bull’s swing crashed against his sword, he was shoved back a step. Or two.

This was exactly what he needed.

They had only gone fifteen minutes before he was covered in perspiration. The more he sweat, the worse his back felt, with stinging and itchiness. Cullen backed up and held up a hand. “Hold. Thought it would be too cold out today, but my back is itching something awful.” He shrugged his shirt over his head. 

From behind him, Dorian said, “I will never utter these words again, Commander, but _put your shirt back on_.”

Cullen turned to look at the Tevinter mage. “What? Why?”

Now behind him, Bull said, “Whoa. Ho. Yeah, shirt on.” 

He tried to look over his shoulder. “What are you—”

“Shirt on, Commander, before every single person in Skyhold sees your back and it becomes the only thing people talk about probably _forever_ ,” Dorian said.

Cullen put his shirt back on. “Ah. That hurts. Would one of you tell me what the hell is wrong?”

“You have fingernail marks down your back like you wouldn’t believe,” Dorian said. He sighed, loudly. “Certainly like I don’t believe it and I just saw them.”

Fingernail marks—when had Evie done that? “You’re joking,” Cullen said.

“Let’s just say I need the name of this woman right now,” Bull said.

Dorian glared at him. “Excuse me?”

Cullen clenched his jaw. He was not going to discuss this with these two. Or anybody. Dorian was definitely right about gossip around Skyhold—he knew how bad it could get in the barracks alone. And if it were gossip about the Commander and word got back to Evelyn…

Bull tilted his head at Dorian, grinning at his lover. “C’mon, you wouldn’t like to know more about a woman who can leave those marks on his back and he’s so distracted by the rest of the fucking he doesn’t notice?”

Dorian thought about that. “Could have been a man.”

Bull rolled his eyes. “Could be, sure. Gotta say, Rutherford, I’m impressed. I had no idea you were involved with someone. Dorian here had his money on you being a virgin.”

“Someone is not getting laid tonight, and, surprisingly enough, it’s not the Commander,” Dorian said.

Bull ignored him. “Go for a long soak with lavender and maybe parsley. You’ll smell like you’re in a soup, but trust me, it’s great. And tell your woman to file her nails. Wow. How did you not feel her do that?”

Because it was exactly like Bull had guessed: Cullen had been way more involved in the sensation of having Evie underneath him and being inside her than he was in sensations anywhere in the rest of his body. When he was with her, his eyes were closed, and he was with Evelyn, and he couldn’t feel anything except that.

“Is it the Inquisitor?” Dorian asked. “Please tell me it is. She certainly been looking like the cat who got into the cream recently. If you know what I mean.”

“Dorian, really?” Bull said.

Cullen glared at him. “It’s not Evelyn.” 

Dorian suddenly looked deeply uncomfortable. “Oh, damn. Well, I’m sure there’s some other reason she’s been so… So.”

“Stop. Talking. Now,” Bull said. 

“Right,” said the Tevinter mage.

~ O ~

Cullen sat on the bed. Evie knelt over him, the two of them joined together. She raised herself up and down on his cock, squeezing gently as she went. He put his hands on her waist to move her faster and she dug her fingers under his palms to make him let go. 

“Slow,” she said, and she continued teasing him with her languid pace. One of her hands trailed down his chest, fingers splayed over his skin. The other she used to tease his mouth, letting him lick and suck them. Her thumb kept brushing over that damnable scar on his lips.

Really. This woman. He ought to stop thinking about the Inquisitor, stop pretending he could be with her, and focus his attentions on someone much more attainable, like the one currently riding him. It was hard to believe Evelyn would do something like this, riding him after a night already spent with his cock down her throat and him taking her from behind. 

It was really easy to envision her there though.

His climax came on him suddenly and his hips lurched up. “Evelyn,” he said. And then he felt even worse. He hadn’t called her that in a while, but when his defenses were down the illusion came back stronger than ever.

After he softened and Evie slid off him, she lay beside him and ran her hand down his chest. “Talk to her,” she whispered. 

Cullen let his head fall back against the wall of his loft. Yes. He ought to do that.

~ O ~

There was a knock on the door of his office and the Inquisitor walked in. She was backlit by the setting sun and with her face and hair shadowed, and he had to blink: for a second he thought Evie had arrived early.

 _Yes, isn’t that odd_ , the voice in his head said. _So many odd coincidences._

But it wasn’t Evie, it was the Inquisitor. Evelyn looked as radiant and untouchable as ever. Her light blonde hair was bound up in a twist and her blue eyes—

Had he ever seen Evie’s eyes in better light? Hers were blue too. Very similar. But her eye shape was different. Possibly the makeup she wore? Makeup was definitely not something Cullen understood

—Were definitely twinkling with amusement. “You asked to see me, Commander?”

She was in such a good mood. So happy to see him. He wondered what she thought he wanted to talk to her about, because what he was about to say was going to disappoint her so greatly. He stood up to greet her. “Yes, Inquisitor. There’s something we need to discuss, something I have not told you before. And I should have.”

Her expression fell. “Oh? Well, whatever it is, please, tell me. Is everything all right with you?”

“It’s about lyrium.”

“Lyrium?”

“You know what lyrium means to mages. Lyrium also grants Templars our abilities, but it controls us as well. Those cut off suffer — some go mad, others die. We have secured a reliable source of lyrium for the Templars here. But I…no longer take it.”

He had never confessed that her that when she was just the Herald of Andraste. But now she was the Inquisitor. His superior, after all. She deserved to know. And it was her call as to whether or not he should remain as Commander, given his…defects.

Yet another reason it was easier—no, _better_ —not to tell her how he felt about her. She did not need the problems of an ex-Templar lyrium addict in her life. 

“You stopped taking it?” she said.

Maker, the concern in her voice. He nodded. “When I joined the Inquisition. It’s been months now.” 

She walked closer to him. “Cullen, this can kill you.”

“It hasn’t yet. After what happened in Kirkwall…I couldn’t… I will not be bound to the Order — or that life — any longer. Whatever the suffering, I accept it. But I would not put the Inquisition at risk. I have asked Cassandra to…watch me. If my ability to lead in compromised, I will be relieved from duty.”

She just kept coming closer. His self-control was at low enough ebb already. 

“Are you in pain?” she asked.

“I can endure it.”

She nodded. “Those headaches you’ve mentioned.”

“Among other things.” 

She stood very close to him now, close enough for him to smell the scent of jasmine in her hair. She took one of his hands—Maker, her skin was so warm—and clasped it between both of hers. He wanted to curl his fingers against hers so badly.

He restrained himself.

“If there’s anything you need—”

He shook his head, not trusting himself to speak. Not to answer that question with _You_.  

She lowered their hands and stepped backward. “Thank you for telling me.”

“The Inquisition’s army must always take priority. Should anything happen… I will defer to Cassandra’s judgement… And yours, of course.” 

~ O ~

Her knees were at his shoulders with her feet crossed behind his head. He raised himself over her, pounding her with a rhythm that went with the pounding in his head. He used his other hand to rub the spot between her legs as he thrust into her, and the moment she started to come she let out a series of louder and louder wails as her cunt began to clench him hard over and over. He followed her a few seconds later and finally finished by falling on top of her. Their bodies were both so sweaty, he noticed, as his chest slid against her breasts. He tried to move off, but she held him there, most of his body still resting on hers. Where it had been, in one configuration or another, for hours. 

He was panting and sweating and this had to be very uncomfortable for her, having a man of his size draped across her, but she just held him. She ran her fingers through his hair and rubbed her cheek against the top of his head. Being held like this felt more intimate than many of the things they had just done.

It was getting late. Had to be getting near midnight. If she didn’t live inside Skyhold proper—which would be unlikely, as only the soldiers and the main keep’s servants were allowed to live inside, and she wasn’t any of those—she had to leave the fortress before the midnight bells rang and the front gates closed.

“Will you stay?” he asked.

There was a sharp intake of breath, and Evie’s chest lifted underneath him. Then he felt her head shake against the pillow. “No. Can’t.” Then she started wriggling out from underneath him. “I should go now.”

He let her go. He didn’t know anything about her life and where she had to be.

In the dark gloom of his loft, lighted only by the faintest indirect light form the sky, she looked so much like Evelyn from the back, with her hair down, that he was sure it had to be her.

It couldn’t be. Evelyn would never do anything like this.

Definitely better not to know anything about this woman.

~ O ~

Another knock on his door. There were weeks he couldn’t get through a single afternoon without being bothered. Seemed like this week was worse than most—and he suspected it was happening because he was so motivated to get  all his work done before nine rolled around. Why did all of the Maker-damned traffic in Skyhold seem to go through his office? “Yes,” he called out.

It was Henrietta, the plump woman from the laundry who brought him his wash every week. She walked in balancing three thick bundles tied up with twine, and she stacked them on a chair by the wall. “Here you go, Commander. And just so you know—”

He waved a hand at her. “You’re not climbing up that ladder. So you have said.” He wondered if he had any coins on hand to tip her. He had gone through most of his money faster than he had intended of late. 

“Well, it’s actually something else I want to mention this time, Commander.” She patted the top bundle, which were the whites—his sheets. She looked around to see if anyone else was there. “You’ve got to tell your lady friend when she uses black lotus on her hair, she’s got to seal it in with a vinegar rinse. Otherwise, it just gets into everything. Your pillowcases are grey. We had to use bleach on everything.”

What was Henrietta on about? “Are you certain those are my sheets?” he asked.

Henrietta put her hands on her hips. “Are you impugning my ability to keep the wash straight?”

“No, no, it’s just— I can’t imagine why there’s…what did you say? Hair dye? Black hair dye?”

She shook out her own head of dark black hair. “I touch up my roots a bit with it. You can darken your hair a few shades or make it black as night.” She patted the sheets again. “Your friend doesn’t use much, because she didn’t leave black streaks, but she’s got to use vinegar on it or she’ll ruin your laundry.” She shook her head. “She must have to reapply it every time she washes her hair. What’s she thinking?”

Henrietta stood there like she expected the two of them to have a long and fruitful discussion on the use of black lotus root. 

He found a couple of coins in the top drawer of his desk and handed them to her. “Thank you for the insights on hair coloring, Henrietta.” 

When the washerwoman left, Cullen found himself unable to concentrate on whatever he had just been doing. 

Black hair dye?

Evie didn’t have black hair—she had dark blonde hair. 

If she using this black dye to color her hair even a tiny bit, then her natural hair color was closer to Evelyn’s. Given the nature of their relationship—given the one thing he liked best about her—why would she change her appearance _away_ from looking even more like Evelyn? Wouldn’t she want the resemblance to be closer?

 _That is an_ excellent _question_ , his inner voice said. _Let’s work through it to its obvious conclusion._

He was definitely going to ask her that night what was going on.

 _Ask her not to wear that makeup while you’re at it. Find out what she_ really _looks like_ , the voice said.

 _Shut up_ , he told himself.

He picked up each of the bales of laundry and tossed them up to the loft. And after a lifetime of immediately putting his things away instead of leaving them out, he climbed the ladder and set about untying the bales and putting his clothes, sheets, and towels in the proper place.

After he put everything in the trunk or on the shelves, he sat on the bed and put his hand on the pillow. Don’t think about it too much, he told himself. There’s a good reason for it.

It was only then he noticed the money he had left out the night before was still on the side table. 

Cullen Rutherford knew very few things about the women he hired. He didn’t know their names. He didn’t know where they lived. He didn’t know what else they did with their time or who else they lay with. 

He knew for absolute certain they _always_ remembered to take the money.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know Cullen's inner voice sounds a little too much like Dorian, but I think everyone's internal voice sounds a little too much like Dorian, to be honest. I wonder what Dorian's sounds like. Probably like Halward, tbh.
> 
> You can find me at itsdavinahyde.tumblr.com.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evelyn decides she has to end her nightly meetings with Cullen before he figures out what's going on or she does something stupid like confessing all. 
> 
> That decision actually works in her favor: she gets the Commander to pay attention to her. The real her. And events take their natural course.
> 
> Which is quite possibly the worst thing that could happen to these two.

The next night the door to Cullen’s office did not open until ten. 

Somehow, he wasn’t surprised. He had wondered if she was going to show at all.

When the door opened, most of the candles in his office blew out. He didn’t feel much of a breeze on his skin, certainly not strong enough to blow out that many flames.

Were his Templar abilities were so diminished he couldn’t tell when magic was being used any more? Had he completely missed that she was a mage?

 _Might have missed a few things_ , his inner voice said.

The woman scooted into his office and kept her black cloak wrapped around her, the hood on and make it hard to see her. She stood in the shadows by the door, her hand never leaving the handle. 

“I can’t come here any more,” she said.

“Why is that?” he asked.

She shook her head, the soft folds of the hood waving back and forth. “I won’t be back.”

She was going to walk away, and he would not get the answers he realized he desperately needed.

“Wait,” Cullen said, and he walked around his desk.

And like that she opened the door and dashed through it, on to the ramparts leading toward the next tower.

“Dammit,” he said, and he chased after her.

By the time he made it outside, she was gone. 

No, there she was, at the top of the stairs leading down toward the portcullis. 

By the time he reached the stairs, he looked over the side and saw the dark wave her cloak flapping in the wind near the bottom of the staircase. When she reached the bottom, she didn’t go left, toward the portcullis, toward the bridge out of Skyhold to the town beyond. Instead, she headed right, toward the main keep. 

Which was foolish for two reasons: if she went through the gates, it would be nearly impossible for him to find her in the town, and only the servants who worked inside Skyhold slept in the main keep. 

Cullen took the steps two at a time to catch up to her.

At the bottom of the stairs he found one of her slippers. It was a simple thing, blue canvas, the sort of thing workers and servants wore. It must have flown off her foot with how hard she was running. He reached down and picked it up.

It took him a few minutes staring into the darkness of nighttime at Skyhold to see where she was: he made out the flap of her cloak in the moonlight as she passed one of the stalls where merchants sold things during the day. She had to be heading for the servants’s entrance at the back of the main keep, which led through the kitchens.

He raced up the stairs.

When he got to the top, the door to the kitchens had already shut behind her. He yanked it open and discovered the kitchen was fully staffed at this late hour, with lights blazing, every oven clearly filled with woods and burning, and  cooks and food preparers at every station. Everyone in the kitchen turned to look at him.

“What’s going—” one of the cooks said.

“Which way did she go?” Cullen barked.

One of the cooks raised his hand and pointed toward the sub-basement.

Cullen pushed his way through the kitchen staff and ran into the center of the sub-basement, a large stone-floored room that led off to the kitchens, the wine cellars, the basement library, the laundry, and storage. There were also rooms where the servants of Skyhold shared quarters, rooms filled with four to twelve cots that were shared by multiple sleepers in shifts through the day. The sub-basement itself was filled with servants and workers lounging around. There was a lot of laughing and chattering going on when he burst in on them, and when the workers turned to see who had run in, several opened their eyes wide and a few scrambled to their feet in a combination of fear and respect.

“Where is she?” he said, and he was surprised to hear his own voice echo off the stone walls and ceilings. 

One of the maids sitting nearest him raised her arm and pointed toward the far staircase. 

Interesting. The near staircase ran all the way up into the tower, as well as having an open door out into the Great Hall. 

The far staircase, though, did not. She would be trapped at the top landing of that stairs.

Two male elves, who were still in their uniforms, sat against one of the walls, looking at something in the hands of one. 

The other blue canvas shoe. 

Cullen stalked over and ripped the shoe out of the elf’s hands. Then he turned and ran up the far staircase, which had only one flight and ended in a small alcove that only had two ways out: the door on the left, which led to Josephine’s office and the War Room, and the door on the right, which led out to the Great Hall. And both doors were kept locked at all times. The only people who had the keys to those locks were the War Council and the Inquisitor’s maid, Nancy.

She had to be there.

He rounded the bend in the stairs, expecting to see her. But the alcove was empty.

Well, not completely empty.

Her cloak was on the floor, a dark grey wool puddle, as though she had simply sunk into the floor right there.

A quick check of the door handles revealed they were both locked, as they should have been at this hour. He rattled each of them twice, just to be sure.

He didn’t have his keys. He couldn’t go through either door to follow Evie’s trail. 

It was probably better that way.

He picked the cloak off the floor, put the shoes in it, and balled it in his arms.

~ O ~

The next two nights, Evelyn waited in the dark and watched the doors to Cullen’s office.

She told herself it was because she wanted to go to him and explain everything. But that was ridiculous. She couldn’t possibly do that. To do so would be insane. She ought to, but…

No, that was a lie. She waited in the chilly dark watching the three doors of his office because she wanted to know how quickly he replaced her. How quickly he asked for another blonde to visit him.

She had known she couldn’t keep up the pretense—he was getting curious. No, worse than that: he was getting attached to the arrangement. And she loathed not being able to touch him the way she wanted or say the things she wanted to.

When he had started chasing her down the stairs, she had been terrified: that he would recognize how she ran, that he would catch up to her, that she would let him catch up to her. But she managed to disappear and that had been the end of that. Well, except for the effect losing her nightly visits evidently had on him.

The next few mornings, over the War Table, the most charitable way of describing Cullen’s appearance was “tired.” He had circles around his eyes and his hands were shaking slightly more than they had been—she had noticed the shaking in the past, but it was only after his confession about lyrium that she realized why a man of such strength and physical ability might have such trouble.

On the third morning, he again appeared to have spent the night fighting off hordes of demons. “I received a communique from Ser Rylen in the Western Approach. He is confident the work will be done in a week.”

“So we should head out of here in the next day or so,” Cassandra said.

Cullen nodded. “The bridge should be done roughly when you arrive.”

Oh, Maker, Evelyn thought. She—or, rather, Evie—had disappeared from the Commander’s nights and despite her repeated efforts to begin some sort of informal relationship between the two of them, she hadn’t gotten very far. And if she knew her Commander—and she did, better than he realized—he would never pursue her. He had such ridiculous notions about propriety. Josephine had less rigid ideas about proper protocol.

How she could have forgot the impending mission to the Western Approach? She would be gone in a day or two for a month. She had to act now.

When the War Table meeting broke up and Leliana, Cassandra, and Josephine were further down the hallway, she said, “Commander?” 

Cullen turned in the doorway. “Yes?”

“We didn’t get a chance to talk the other morning. If you had time now, perhaps we could…”

His eyebrows knitted, like he was having trouble understanding what she was asking.

“Would you like to spend some time with me? To talk?” Evelyn said.

His eyes widened and he said, “Oh. Yes. Yes, I would like that very much.” He looked down at the pile of reports in his hand. “Well, I have to take these to my office…”

“If you go anywhere near your office, you won’t get clear for the rest of the day. You know it as well as I do. Leave all that here, Cullen. You can pick it up later. Or in the morning.”

“There will just be more in the morning,” he said, and she laughed. “All right.” Then he left the piles of paper on the edge of the War Table. 

She took him out into the gardens, where they sat at the table he spent so much time playing chess with Dorian. She settled in one of the wicker chairs and he in the other. The sun made his hair even more gold than ever—with red highlights, how had she never noticed that before—and cast such a glow on his skin. He looked a lot healthier out here in the fresh air than he did in the War Room. 

“Do you play?” he asked. When she shook her head, he said, “Would you like me to teach you?”

“Not today. I’d rather we just talk. We don’t spend a lot of time together and I would like to.” 

He stared at her, the side of his mouth with the scar crooked up just a bit. “I’d like that too.”

Now that she had him here, she felt completely at sea at getting things going between them. Talking was hard, she thought. Fucking was much, much easier.

“Tell me something about you that I don’t already know,” she said. “Something about your family. You’re from Ferelden, aren’t you?”

He told her about growing up in Honnleath, and how his family now lived in South Reach. 

“You haven’t been to see them since you joined the Inquisition,” she said.

“I haven’t seen them for a very long time.”

“There’s a story there,” she said.

Cullen shook his head. “Not one I’m in the mood for telling. How about you? What is something about you I wouldn’t guess?”

Evelyn thought of all manner of things she could bring up. But most of them were things about him, too. After a moment she realized the obvious thing she could say, probably the most shocking thing about her. “I collect rare manuscripts. In particular some of the works of Saint Eustace Augustus.”

Cullen’s eyes widened. “You don’t mean—”

Evelyn burst into giggles. “Yes. Those.” Saint Eustace Augustus was the pseudonym of an unknown writer who had written extremely scandalous tracts, accusing the Chantry of all manner of foul deeds—complete with illuminations and extremely detailed illustrations. To the point of being faintly pornographic.

Well. More than faintly.

He covered his mouth with his hand for a moment before he shook his head. “Okay, you win.” He managed to make a very pained chuckle. And—was he blushing? 

“If you’re about to ask what a nice girl like me is doing with those…you need to reevaluate your premises.”

“Then I won’t ask,” he said. Yes, he was definitely several shades pinker than he had been three minutes before. “Does Leliana know you have those?”

“Leliana? Oh, yes. She’s even got me a few I couldn’t find. Cassandra doesn’t know, however.”

“Best to keep it that way,” he said, and they both burst out laughing. “I’ve never actually had the fortune, or perhaps misfortune, to see one of those, but another Templar in Kirkwall once told me about something called ‘The Travails of Ser Robin.’”

Evelyn felt herself burst into giggles. “That’s a good one. Very nice pictures. I actually have a copy of that,” she said.

“You do?” he said.

“It’s in my quarters,” Evelyn said, staring at him, her lips tilted up. “Do you want to see it?”

“I would love to know what everyone has been talking about,” he said.

~ O ~

It wasn’t until they were halfway up the stairs leading to the front door of the Inquisitor’s apartments that he realized where they were going. Well, of course he’d known where they were going but…with all her flirtations out there in the garden… It suddenly dawned on him that they were going to be alone behind closed doors and she wasn’t suddenly in the mood to discuss Inquisition business.

He stopped walking and she turned around. Standing on the step above him made them almost equal in height and she stood close to him—much, much closer than was required. “What is it?” she asked. 

His breathing had sped up and he could feel his heart racing as well. 

Her gaze directly met his and his senses were overwhelmed by a scent faintly like jasmine and anticipation.

She knew exactly what was likely to happen if he went in there with her. Apparently it might even be something she wanted. Probably why she’d brought up Saint Eustace’s manuscripts.

Cullen thought of dozens of things to say. Hundreds. He thought of even more things he should do. First thing: excuse himself immediately. Or remind both of them of their respective offices. Mention his lyrium problem. Point out she was the daughter of a bann and he the son of a Fereldan farmer and those two social classes did not mix, let alone find themselves in this situation.

He had to stop this before it went any further. He should take a step back from her, walk out of here.

But first he had to know if he was right about this.

“Can I kiss you?” he said.

After an agonizing century—or a couple of seconds, he wasn’t entirely sure—she grinned. “Oh, yes,” she said, and she threw her arms around his neck to close the space between them.

Her lips. Were so soft. 

After a few moments her mouth opened underneath his and he felt her tongue run against his lips. He opened his mouth against hers. 

The sensation was…overwhelming. How something as simple as lips and tongues touching could create such immediate, incessant heat inside him. Every single square inch of his skin felt like it was on fire. 

Her hands ran through his hair and he felt his body move toward hers, closing up all the space in between them. His hands came up to her waist, slowly, sure that this moment she was going to pull away from him. Instead, she pushed against him harder. 

Cullen could name every single woman he had ever kissed. Because there had only ever been two. And Evelyn was the second. He never kissed any of the women who had come to his office, either here or in Kirkwall. 

Evelyn lifted his head to look at him. Her pupils were large and her lips were puffy and she looked dazed. “My rooms are right there,” she said. She was breathy, like she had been running hard. Her voice reminded him of how Evie always—

“Please,” she begged.

“Are you certain you want this?”

“It would be a lot more comfortable there than doing it here,” she said. “There’s something I have to tell you first.”

He had trouble concentrating on anything after the image of having the Inquisitor up against the cold stone wall and thrusting inside her blocked everything else out of his head.

What could Evelyn possibly have to tell him that he needed to know right now? 

“I don’t care what it is,” he said.

She lifted herself on her tiptoes to kiss him again. “You might.”

“Open the door,” he told her. 

She unlocked the door to her quarters and he picked her up in his arms. She let out a small shriek but he laid another kiss on her. 

He carried her up the stairs to the sitting room. He had been in here several times before, of course, always on official Inquisition business, always staying out here for whatever discussions they were having.

The door to her bedroom was closed. He twisted the handle and kicked it open. 

Her bedroom was the largest one in Skyhold, with a giant four poster bed the Inquisition had received as a gift from…well, he had no idea who had given it to them, but he was intensely grateful to whichever of their trading partners it was. There was a lot of room to move around this bed.

He lay her down on the velvet coverlet and she wrapped her arms around him again, holding him on top of her. He could feel her body molding to his, the two of them sinking into the thick cover and the featherbed. 

He wanted to take forever making love to her. 

That was going to have to wait until the second time, he thought. He was far too eager to be inside her the first time.

Evelyn ran her hands up and down his arms, then splayed her hands against his chest, pulling up the fabric of his shirt. “Off,” she said. 

He stripped his shirt over his head. Evelyn sat on the side of the bed and undid his belt. She began to undo the fasteners of his trousers but Cullen put his hands over hers. “This is going to be over much too soon if you go any further there,” he said. “I need to see you.” 

She stood up and turned around. “You’ll have to help.” 

The small buttons down the back of her dress. She needed help getting in and out of such a concoction, he thought. Much easier to wear one of the dresses that Evie—

_Stop thinking about her._

One of the mother of pearl buttons went flying off the dress. He heard the sound of the bone skittering across the wood floor.

Evelyn leaned back, craning her neck up. “I want you to rip this thing off me.”

“I hope that won’t be necessary,” he said. Once the last button was undone, he pushed the sleeves down her arms, the top down to her waist. 

Evelyn reached up and shoved the dress down to the floor. 

He could see every square inch of her back in the bright sunlight flooding in through the large windows. He ran his hands down her sides to her waist, over the widening of her hips, down to the soft curve of her bottom. He leaned down and kissed her neck as he pulled his hands up, feeling the bones of her hips, the softness of her belly, the fullness of her breasts. 

Evelyn leaned back against him and raised her arms to undo the ties in her hair. “Oh, Cullen.” Her beautiful, thick blonde hair cascaded around her shoulders, like silk against his skin. 

He turned her around and looked into her eyes. “Evelyn, are you certain—”

“You have no idea how certain I am, Cullen.”

Her body was as magnificent to look at as it had felt under his hands. He picked her up again and lay her on the bed, that beautiful light blonde hair spread out over the pillow like a fan of pure gold. He got on the bed to stare directly down at her.

She held the sides of his face. “Cullen, I love you.”

Cullen Rutherford was not a man of many words, so he wasn’t really sure what word he could use to describe his feelings other than “stunned.”

Cullen couldn’t believe it. He was here. With Evelyn. In Evelyn’s bed. And she wanted him. She loved him.

“Evelyn, I—”

She pulled him down to her for a rather thorough kiss. “I just needed to say that. Believe me. I have thought about this a lot.” She smiled. “About how I feel about you and about being here with you.”

“So have I,” he whispered.

“There’s something I have to tell you first. Before…before we…”

“Whatever it is, it can wait,” he said. “I’m not sure I can a minute longer.”

His hand kneaded one of her full breasts, then he leaned forward and sucked on the nipple while his hand moved down her belly to the hair at the junction of her legs. He felt the nipple bead under his lips and tongue and moved to the other breast while he rested his hand on her and stroked her already wet core. 

“Get those trousers off, Cullen,” she whined.

He found himself smiling around the raised nipple. “There’s something I want to do first.”

He knelt at her feet, which he grabbed and pushed backward, raising her knees up, displaying her center to him. So clearly visible in the light of day.

He bent forward and pressed his mouth to her. 

Evelyn’s body arched up and she cried out. He pushed her hips down to the bed, pinning her in place. Holding her in place with his hands and his mouth. He licked up and down, careful not to touch the spot he knew she wanted him to touch. And he inhaled her scent as he worked—

He stopped.

The taste of her—

No.

This couldn’t be happening.

But it was.

His dream had just turned a nightmare.

He had to admit, it was his own damned fault. Some part of him had known. That voice in his head had hinted at it.

 _There’s something I have to tell you_ , she had said.

He pushed himself up on his hands and then sat up on the bed. He felt like his world was collapsing around him.

“Cullen?” Evelyn said. She raised her head off the pillow to look at him. “Cullen, what’s wrong?”

Which one of them had behaved worse in this instance? he asked himself. He covered his face with his hand. He wasn’t sure what was stronger, his anger at her or his own shame.

Evelyn sat up. “What is it? What hap—” 

He dropped his hand and stared up at the ceiling. “Was this some kind of lark for you? Is that what I am?”

“What are you…”

He looked at her and she stopped talking. The most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, the woman he was so in love with. “You can’t change how you taste, Evelyn. I can tell it’s you by the taste.” He wiped his face. “And the smell. Were you going to tell me? Or was this a joke?”

She opened her mouth and then shut it again. “Cullen, please, I can explain.” 

He picked his shirt off the ground and pulled it on. 

Evelyn scrambled to the edge of the bed and reached for his arm. “Wait. Don’t—come back here. Talk to me.”

“How could you do that?” he yelled.

“How could you?” she whispered. 

The betrayal did go both ways, didn’t it. He had sought solace in other women’s arms, and she had used him without his permission. 

Evelyn sat back, her face contorted, tears beginning to flood her eyes. “We have to talk.”

“We will. But it cannot be now.” He tied his boot.

“In a day or maybe two, I leave for the Western Approach for a month. At least a month.”

He felt his anger bubbling up inside him. “If I had any decency whatsoever, I should resign, Evelyn. And you ought to demand it Do you understand that?”

She grabbed his arm. That hand of hers, whose touch he had craved so badly. “Tell me you won’t do that. Cullen, please. Promise me you won’t.” 

He didn’t want to promise anything. “I won’t before you return. But it would probably be best if I did.”

~ O ~

The next morning the Inquisitor and her party prepared to leave Skyhold. As he usually did, Cullen came down to the stables to see them off.

Most of the Inner Circle joked with each other or squabbled about who was the most hungover. Evelyn just stared at Cullen, who looked at her with distance and formality. Like they hadn’t been in her bed less than a day before. Like he hadn’t been inside her dozens of times over the past few weeks.

Like she hadn’t told him she loved him.

She ignored the groom trying to get her attention. “Cullen—”

“I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors in the Western Approach, Inquisitor,” he said.

Evelyn mounted her horse and nodded. “Thank you, Commander.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Evelyn uses the old “would you like to see my etchings” gambit. Alas, things take a turn for the worse. Let this be a lesson to you: Get the hard conversations out of the way early, so everyone can get back to enjoying the sex like they’re supposed to.
> 
> I'm almost sure I know how to get them out this one.
> 
> (Seriously, this was going to be a THREE PART story. I distinctly remember thinking it had THREE PARTS.)
> 
> “Ser Robin” is a Monty Python reference. #icouldnthelpit #bravesirrobin


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen is doing JUST FINE, thank you, with the Inquisitor gone. Probably even BETTER not having her around.
> 
> Until she writes. 
> 
> He slowly figures out that maybe, just maybe, he ought to get over that ridiculous pride of his before it's too late.
> 
> Given the work the Inquisitor does, it is always on the verge of being too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Usually writers tell you when chapters are NSFW. In this story I should probably tag this chapter as "SFW."

Work. The best way to deal with what he was feeling—with any feelings, really—was to take care of the things that could be done without emotion. Facts. Figures. Requisitions. Field reports.

Those were things he could deal with.

He had his dinner delivered to his office three nights in a row. After all, lots of paperwork had been building up over the last two weeks, while he had been otherwise preoccupied.

_There’s something I have to tell you._

He had to admit, she had tried to tell him. Not very hard. But it had crossed her mind.

One of his candles had burned out, so he was sitting here in the near dark. More light would help him focus. He should always keep more light on—he didn’t want to get caught off guard again.

_You knew. Stop acting as if you didn’t._

He had to write a report telling the Inquisitor what was going on in Skyhold and summarizing reports from the Inquisition’s forces in the fields. 

Every time he had the quill in hand he stared at the paper like he had never written a letter before. The sort of thing he felt every time he didn’t have to write an official order from the desk of Commander.

The door opened, and Jim entered, holding a stack of letters just received by raven. Cullen recognize the insignia stamped on the top one immediately. His hands had trembled as he unfolded the paper. 

 

_Commander:_

_Many thanks to your soldiers, who have done a bang up job of building a bridge across an area previously impassable. We should reach Griffon Wing Keep within three days, and Knight-Captain Rylen is preparing his forces to challenge the Venatori currently there. I will of course write immediately to let Skyhold know how our assault goes._

_\- Evelyn Trevelyan_

 

He had feared she would be cruel and cutting, only to find the letter was short and impersonal. And if he were going to be honest, he was somewhat hoping she would indicate she missed him.

He shouldn’t be surprised at the distance in her tone, should he? When she left, he was so angry he could barely look at her. Of course, as soon as she left, he thought of a hundred or a thousand things he should say to her. If he could ever stop feeling angry and betrayed. Or stop letting his pride get in the way.

He would write an official Commander’s letter. Those, he knew how to do.

 

_Inquisitor:_

_Excellent news to hear things are progressing so well. The Western Approach can be difficult under the best circumstances._

_Please let me know if your mission requires any more personnel or materiel._

_\- Commander Cullen Rutherford_

 

Was that too formal? No, that was probably as much as she wanted to hear from him. After all…he had refused to talk to her before she left. And anyhow, there was almost no news to tell her from Skyhold. He should simply let his complicated emotions lay dormant until she returned. 

Maybe he would have moved past what had happened by then.

She sent a response within forty-eight hours. He tore the paper open and even ripped one of the corners off in his haste.

 

_Commander:_

_I was relieved to get an answer from you._

_We have taken Griffon Wing Keep. There were a few losses (see list, attached) but primarily the Venatori took the brunt of things. The Inquisition soldiers soldiers were extremely well-trained and worked together like a machine. You should be very proud. Maker knows I am._

_Also attached: Rylen’s recommendations for commendations, promotions, &c._

_There were corpses in the well for the keep’s drinking water. It is safe to say that in the Western Approach what isn’t corpses is either sand or quillbacks. Remind me not to buy property here._

_In the morning my team and I will press on to the Ritual Tower. Hawke sent word that we will find some of the Grey Wardens there. I hope we are not too late._

_\- Evelyn_

_PS. I hope you are doing well._

 

He read the letter four or five times within the first few minutes after Jim had delivered it. There wasn’t anything particularly personal in there—not that there ever would be, because every letter written went through Leliana, first. How the spymaster managed to reaffix the wax seal so perfectly, he would never understand. And yet it felt like Evelyn was reaching out to him, with the more casual, even jokey tone.

He hadn’t realized until this moment how desperately he wanted to hear something personal from her. 

He didn’t simply miss talking to her. He _craved_ talking to her. Seeing her. Spending time with her discussing Inquisition business, playing chess, or discussing military strategy, or watching her outdrink Varric in the tavern. His nights had been worse than his lyrium withdrawals—several times since she had left he had woken up, disoriented and wanting her. Evelyn’s absence was making it worse, not better.

Now that he knew she and Evie were the same woman…all the guilt he had felt about enjoying every single second with Evie was washed away in the anger he’d felt at being deceived. And that anger was being replaced with a real need to see Evelyn again—at the very least to talk to her as he never could before. Perhaps even more.

Except they had left things—

No. He had left things in a bad state. _He_ had stormed away, he had ignored her, shut her down. And now she was in the Western Approach, possibly for several more weeks.

He flexed his hand, wondering what he say in return.

 

_Inquis_ _Evelyn:_

_I am very glad to hear everything went well at Griffon Wing Keep. I will send condolences to the families of the fallen soldiers._

_C. R._

_PS - I have been wondering how you are as well. I have missed talking to you. I apologise for how I left our last discussion._

 

That was about as explicit as he could get about what he wanted to say, with so many intermediaries who would read it. There was absolutely no way to have a more intimate conversation with her in the letters sent by raven — and he wasn’t sure what he would say anyhow.

Only thirty minutes had passed since he had received Evelyn’s note and he was ready with his reply. Perhaps the haste would make clear what his words could not.

Cullen walked up to Leliana’s area at the top of the tower. He found the Chantry sister cooing at one of her ravens. The large black bird eyed the interloper warily, perhaps thinking someone was moving in on his woman.

“Aren’t you a handsome boy?” Leliana said to her bird. She kissed the raven on the beak and put him back in the cage. “Commander, I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

“I have a letter to send the Inquisitor.”

One of Leliana’s delicate red eyebrows arched up.

“What?” Cullen snapped.

“You received one less than an hour ago and already you have a response?” she said, her voice lilting. “Interesting.” She held her hand out. “You do know I have to read it first.”

“Worried about what I might tell her?”

“Worried about what someone else might glean from this if my bird should fall into the wrong hands.” She scanned the letter. “All right. There’s a seal on my desk there.”

By the time Cullen had sealed the letter, the spymaster was ready with a huge black raven, perched on her arm. She took the letter from him and held it out. The raven snatched it with its large, powerful beak, and then it flew through the window.

“How does he know where to fly?” Cullen asked.

“I told him, obviously,” Leliana said. She smiled. “I also mentioned this appears to be a matter of some urgency.” 

Ah. Leliana understood the postscript. She knew about them. _Well_ , he thought, _of course she did_. She had probably known before he did. He should count himself lucky that Leliana was as tight-lipped as she was.

Every time he spotted Jim or one of the other runners heading toward him, his heart rate sped up and it felt like there was a hand squeezing his chest. Even though she couldn’t possibly have responded that fast, he kept looking to see if someone was delivering him a letter. Would she respond? Would she simply pass over what he had said? 

He was taken by surprise two days later when the door to his office opened and Sister Leliana walked in, her face somber. She had a note in her hand. “We just received this.”

She hadn’t bothered to reseal the wax, he noted.

 

_Cullen:_

_The Warden situation is_ _very bad_ _. Bring your most experienced troops to Adamant Fortress_ _immediately_ _._

_\- Evelyn_

 

She had never sent anything like this. She was asking for his help and it could already be too late. Dammit.

 _Snap out of it_ , he told himself. _Focus on what you need to do._

He would take the First to Adamant, obviously. Soldiers who had been with him the longest, hardened by some of the worst they had seen since the collapse of the Chantry. A smaller unit could also move faster than a larger subset of the army. 

“The soldiers and I will leave within the hour,” he said.

Leliana nodded. “I will send word to the Inquisitor.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evelyn is devastated by the events at Adamant. 
> 
> Cullen realizes he has to force her to talk to him, because otherwise both of them are going to avoid dealing with what happened between them.

On the tenth of Eluviesta, the Inquisition’s troops arrived at the camp already set up near Adamant Fortress.

Evelyn watched the Inquisition soldiers march into camp, Cullen at their head. She cracked half a smile when she realized her first thought was, “They made excellent time” and not about how the two of them had left things back in Skyhold.

She didn’t have time to think about the mess between them, to be honest. Her main goal—her only goal—was to stop the atrocity happening in Adamant Fortress. The rest of her life was unimportant, really.

Evelyn had put her life on hold for the Inquisition up until this point. Compartmentalizing her emotions was _easy_.

Cullen, Knight-Captain Rylen, and Evelyn met in her tent to go over the battle plans, down to the layout of the different floors and towers. They talked to one another exactly the same way they had talked over a table about strategy ever. Cullen looked serious and thoughtful and worn out by the burdens of ordering young men to kill and be killed.

That was the Commander she knew. 

The one she could deal with.

On the eleventh, before dawn, the Inquisition troops assembled, ready to attack. The sky was dark, the air was dry and raspy, the temperature was already hotter than an inferno. 

“Good hunting, Inquisitor,” the Commander said, and she appreciated hearing that.

~ O ~

With a loud crack like a lightning bolt stab in the heart, a second rip into the Fade opened and the Inquisitor and her party fell to the ground. The five of them were much more tired and beaten up than they had been when they disappeared, as though they had been fighting nonstop. Covered in blood and bruises, but alive and well.

Except six of them had disappeared through the rift, not just five.

“Inquisitor! Are you—” Cullen said, but she waved her hand at him.

“Stroud didn’t make it,” the Inquisitor said curtly. She stalked away from where the rip had opened, keeping to herself, and went to her tent.

The battle was over. The Grey Wardens defeated, Lord Magister Lucius Erimond captured, the human sacrifices brought to an end. And instead of taking her rightful pride in having defeated another enemy, Evelyn chose to be alone.

Not Evelyn, Cullen told himself. The Inquisitor. He saw them as almost two different people anyhow.

He looked at Cassandra, who looked as tired and drained as the Inquisitor did after whatever had happened in the Fade. The Seeker shook her head at him and waved her hand as if to say, _Not now_. Dorian dropped into a crouch in the shade of the fortress, wrapping his arms around his body to hide himself away. Even Solas, who might be expected to have enjoyed entering the Fade bodily, looked haunted. Varric, shoulders drooping, set off to be by himself.

Once the Wardens were squared away and the soldiers knew their orders for the rest of the day, Cullen approached the Inquisitor’s tent. One of the Inquisitor’s maidservants stood at the door, holding a pitcher of water and a cup. The young woman looked at him. “She won’t answer, ser.” 

Cullen knocked on the wooden frame of the door. It rattled so hard he worried it might come off.

“Go the hell away already,” Evelyn yelled.

“Inquisitor,” he said.

“Whatever you have, I will sign it _later_ ,” she said. Her voice sounded like she was on the verge of breaking down in tears. 

“I’m coming in.” He pulled the door open and took the pitcher and cup from the maid servant. 

Evelyn was just sitting on her cot, still in the ripped and torn clothes she wore over her armor. There was a dark brown patch near the hem of the tunic and long streaks of something green down her right side, interspersed with rips in the fabric, as though something with giant claws had swiped her.

When she looked up at him, she seemed like she was close to bursting into tears as well.

“Did you not hear me tell you to go away?” she said.

“First things first.” He put the cup on the table and filled it. Then he held it out to her. “Every single person today is exhausted and dehydrated. Drink.” 

She glared at him before she grabbed the cup, spilling half of it down her arm, and drained it. Then she held the cup out again and he refilled it.

Once she had drunk that, he said, “Cassandra told me some of what happened.”

Evelyn chuckled as she wiped her wet hand across her face, leaving dirt streaks on her cheek. “Well, then. Good. Leave.”

“She told us Stroud volunteered so the rest of you could live.” Cullen sat across from her, on a chair near the cot. He rested his feet near hers. “It was his job. He knew what he was doing. She also told me about the spiders. And the gravestones—”

 “Stroud’s not the worst part.” She put the cup down. Cullen watched as she opened her mouth over and over, as if beginning what to say, but then she shook her head. “There’s no point in trying to explain this. To you. To anyone. It’s fine. Just go.”

He took her hand between his own. Despite the midday heat of the Western Approach, her skin was chilly and damp. “Tell me.”

He didn’t mean to touch her as anything other than a supportive gesture—the Inquisitor was clearly wracked by some kind of pain, something that happened in the Fade.

But she stared at their hands like she had no idea what he was doing. She didn’t pull away, but she seemed to regard their joined hands as a strange event happening outside of both of them. “Commander—”

“Tell me what happened, Evelyn,” he said, looking directly in to her blue eyes. So familiar to him now. How had he ever looked into Evie’s eyes and not known? he asked himself. 

“I got all my memories back. That was unexpected,” she said.

“That’s excellent. But that’s not what’s troubling you.”

She shook her head, like she was trying to wake up from a heavy sleep. Only then did she try to pull her hand away from him, but he clamped down and held it fast. “Tell me, Evelyn.”

She blinked, and the tears that had been building in her eyes spilled out. “How can you do this?” she whispered.

“Do what?” he said.

She yanked her hand away from him and stared at it. “Touch me. Touch _this_. I opened a hole in the Fade, Cullen, _me_.” The green Anchor on her hand spread an unearthly, sickly glow across her cheek. “I could see it on everyone’s face when we were there. What sort of person can do that? I don’t know, and I’m the one who did it.”

He stared at her and thought of the thousands of answers he had to that question, from “The answer to Thedas’s prayers” to “A woman I’m scared I’m in love with.” But this wasn’t the time or the place to confess his feelings—his feelings didn’t enter into any of this. She needed to know she had done the right thing, that she was the right person leading the Inquisition. 

Instead, he deliberately leaned over, picked up the hand that bore the Anchor, and sandwiched it between his own. 

“The strongest person I’ve ever met can do that,” he said. “You have done things no one could have. You have faced enemies no one else could. You saved them from the dragon and you saved them from the fall and you got them out of the Fade again. That’s the sort of person who bears this mark.”

Evelyn covered her face with her other hand and he could hear her begin to cry. She was exhausted and drained by whatever had happened when they were in the Fade—by Cassandra’s estimation, the time they spent in the Fade was three times longer than the time that had passed in Thedas—and probably by everything else going on as well. Which included him. 

He felt her fingernails curl into the palm of his hand as her body began to shake with sobs. 

“You need to rest,” he said softly. “You need to recover.”

“Please don’t leave me.” Still hiding behind her hand. 

He wanted to believe she needed him specifically, but he suspected she just needed the support of anyone she knew right now. “Of course,” he said. Why had he let her leave Skyhold without working out things between them? he asked himself. “I will stay right here.” 

Evelyn reached up to the ties on her tunic but it was like she no longer knew how to unfasten her clothing. 

“Let me,” he said, and she dropped her hand. He loosened the tunic and pulled it over her head. Then he unfastened the hooks and buckles on her chainmail shirt and skirt and removed them, lifting her as though she were just a rag doll. Remarkably domestic, he thought. All of the undressing he had been doing recently—on the very same woman, in fact—had been frenzied and urgent. What he was doing now was just…

Well, this was what she needed him to do for her. 

When she was down her smalls, the line of her breast-band peeking through the collar of her undershirt, he poured some of the water from the pitcher on to a cloth and wiped her face clean of the dirt and tears. “There,” he said. “Lie down and rest, okay?”

She nodded and lay down on her side. He pulled the blanket over her, but she pushed her hand out. “Please don’t leave me,” she whispered. 

He sat back on the chair by the cot and took her hand. She curled her fingers and, after a few moments, she was fast asleep.

Since this was the first time Cullen had stopped since the battle had begun at dawn, he fell asleep seconds later, his hand still cradling hers. Some time later he was woken by her maidservant, who said she would wait with the Inquisitor until she awoke. Cullen returned to his tent.

They did not speak again in private until weeks after they returned to Skyhold.

~ O ~

When the Inquisitor returned to Skyhold, she was stronger than ever: she commanded the Grey Wardens to join the Inquisition, she sentenced Magister Livius Erimond to be executed for his crimes, and she redoubled the Inquisition’s preparations to find and destroy Corypheus. There were constant meetings about what they should and who they needed to contact and what the next move would be.

What did not occur, however, was a private chat between Evelyn and Cullen. The Inquisitor talked to the Commander frequently, even some times in private conference. Whenever it seemed like his expression had changed—as if the Commander was giving way to another man, one she knew all too well—she made an excuse to go.

She did that deliberately. She didn’t know what to say to him. She didn’t know what she wanted to hear from him.

She didn’t remember much of the aftermath of Adamant, other than collapsing in her tent. Had she really begged him not to leave her side? Was she mad? Of all the people she had to go to…

Stupid. She had been stupid, that was all. _If you could stop being stupid, that would be really wonderful, Evelyn_ , she told herself. So she kept busy, doing what she had learned how to do. And she did not think about where she and Cullen had left things before the Western Approach. They had a chance to start over, from the beginning, and they should simply let the past lie. 

What she had done—what they had done together—that was all ancient history now. Two different people who had lost their minds for a little while. She had greater issues to deal with than messy, stupid needs and wants.

Besides which, he was probably done with blondes and moved on to redheads.

Every time she saw a redheaded woman walk by, she wondered if she was right.

Two weeks after they returned from the Western Approach, the War Table meeting ended and Evelyn prepared to leave. Cullen subtly, but quite deliberately, moved his foot in front of her to block the path out of the room. “A moment, Inquisitor,” he said.

“Not now,” she said quietly.

“It will be now,” he replied, not moving his leg.

She glared at him, only to find his copper eyes fixed on her, his expression neutral. She also didn’t move away from him, the feel of the outline of his armor through the front panel of her skirt more hypnotic than it had any right to be. “What is there left to say?” she said, hissing. “I apologized. I don’t have it in me to give you anything more.”

He leaned toward her just enough to emphasize the difference in their sizes. “That is not enough for me. That’s not enough for either of us. So yes, we do have to discuss this. In fact, I am reminded of something you once said to me.”

Mostly what she had said to him was variations on _Anything you want, ser._ “I’ve said I’m sorry.”

He loomed over her. “You also said you loved me.”

She had, hadn’t she? How like him, to bring that up. How like her, always making a bad situation worse. “Yes, well, we always say whatever we need to get what we want.”

The twitch of a muscle in his cheek by that remarkable lip scar was the only indication her words had landed. “I guess we do. A topic we will discuss further tonight.”

“Cullen, don’t be ridiculous—”

“Nine pm, in my office,” he continued. Not smiling. Not debating. Simply informing her of the facts.

The time and place she knew all too well. Adrenaline coursed through her body. “I will do no such thing.”

The corners of his mouth turned upward. “Don’t keep me waiting. I don’t like being kept waiting.” He drew his leg away from her and nodded. “Inquisitor.” He opened the door for her. 

She felt weak and wobbly, just having stood so close to him for the first time in weeks and smelled the blend of perspiration and soap and oils she knew so intimately. She wanted to have the last word, but instead she simply walked out of the room, not looking at him. 

~ O ~

The door to his office opened at nine-thirty.

Cullen sat at the desk and watched the door swing open and Evelyn walk through it, her face stormy and confrontational. He had actually been prepared to wait until ten o’clock before he crossed the bridge to the main keep to find her. The Commander loudly looking for the Inquisitor at that hour of night would have caused something of a scandal, but he figured most of the options open to them at this point did.

Evelyn walked in, not dressed as Evie, but not dressed as she had been in the War Room earlier. In the daytime she had worn one of her official Inquisitor dresses, one styled to make her look like a serious leader. Now she wore the casual outfit she wore around Skyhold, with a tunic and breeches, covered by a dark cloak of a finer cut and fabric than her alter ego’s. Which meant she had made the deliberate choice to change out of her dress and into something…less accessible.

Just as he had made the decision not to shave his late afternoon beard growth and stay in the sweat-stained Commander’s uniform he had worn on the field all afternoon. Not his best side. But slightly closer to his truer one.

She sank against the door, not advancing any further into the room. “What do you want?” she said.

He raised his hand and crooked his finger at her to come closer.

“Cullen, this is ridiculous.”

“You’re here. We both know exactly how important this is. Come over here.”

“And do what,” she said, still against the door, her teeth gritted.

“We’re going to talk.” He raised his eyebrows. “Unless you have something else in mind.”

“Well, I don’t,” she spat.

“Then all we’ll do is talk,” he said. He patted the space on his desk right in front of his chair, a spot he knew she was well acquainted with. He had enjoyed her body there often enough: whilst she sat on her bottom, laid on her back, or leaned forward with his body curved against her. He had imagined her cries of ecstasy were actually coming from the Inquisitor…only to find out they actually did.

Evelyn’s expression showed she remembered those moments as well as he did. Her entire body betrayed that she was at war with herself, fidgeting, moving forward, falling against the door. If she bolted from his office now, his entire plan was for naught and their relationship would more than likely never recover. He needed to get her close to him so that they would talk—while remembering how it felt being that close together. Even if he never touched any part of them again, he needed the both of them to be honest about what was going on. 

With a strangled grunt of frustration, she launched herself off of her place of safety by the door and stalked over to his desk. She planted her bottom on his desk and then crossed her arms. “What is it.” 

He stood up and she leaned away from him. He bent over so that his mouth was right near her ear. “I’m not going to touch you, Evelyn, unless you ask me to. I desperately want to. You know that. I think you even want me to. But I won’t.” 

He sat back down and scooted the desk chair just a little closer to her, putting his hands on either side of her legs. She pressed her legs together. “Do you know how often I have thought about that day, Evelyn? You know what day I mean, don’t you?”

She snorted and looked away. 

“When it came to Evelyn Trevelyan, I was a coward. I was angry because my own cowardice was laid bare. I know that. It wasn’t until Adamant I realized everyone’s a coward when it comes to you. Even you.” 

That earned him a glare. She slapped her hands on the desk and leaned forward, as if to launch herself off. “I’m done.” 

He didn’t move his hands or the chair. In order to get off the desk, she would have to touch him. She stayed put.

“But that’s when I figured out the answer to a problem that had baffled me. I know why I hired women to pretend to be you. Because I was afraid.”

She burst into laughter. “Afraid? What do you have to be afraid of?” 

“Of you. Of me not being enough for someone like you. Of being rejected. What I couldn’t figure out was why you did what you did. Why you pretended to be someone pretending to be you.” 

“Because I wanted to fuck you,” she said. “What else should I have done?”

He grinned. “You knew what I was doing in here. You knew just how badly I wanted you. All you had to do was bring me to your quarters and find out for yourself how serious my infatuation was. You wanted to know. All you had to do was ask. You could have made it an order.” He looked at her mouth and then back into her eyes. “That might have been fun.”

Her cheeks flushed and her breathing began to sound a little harder. “I would never do that,” she said.

He shook his head. “No. Because you don’t think you can have what you want. You don’t think you should. That’s what Adamant taught me.”

“Nothing that happened at Adamant had anything to do with what happened between us.”

“You wish you could escape being you. Pretending to be someone else gives you what you want without needing to fear being rejected. Isn’t that funny? Both of us doing the exact same thing and both of us missing out on what we want most.”

Evelyn’s pupils were dilated and her lower lip dropped just enough to show her lower teeth. Her chest was heaving and Maker, he wanted nothing more than to show her exactly the effect she had on him.

“You don’t want me,” Evelyn said. “You want someone else. You want something else.”

Since the moment his defenses had broken down and he had started wanting her, he had burned for her. He would probably stop only after he was dead. And not immediately after his death either. “You are so very wrong about that.”

“It doesn’t matter. This can’t happen between us. You know it. I know it.”

Cullen rose out of the chair again, his gaze never leaving her, and he leaned next to her ear again, careful not to touch her. “You’re a woman who can open doors into the Fade,” he whispered. “Who would dare tell you what to do?”

He pulled back far enough so that they could look at one another, and he realized his breathing had sped up to match hers.

She brought her hand up to the side of his face and cupped the scratchy beginnings of his beard. It took every ounce of his self-control not to move first. After all, he had done enough of that so far. He needed to know Evelyn, as Evelyn, wanted this.

Evelyn put her arms around his neck and pulled him to her, her mouth meeting his, their lips opening, their tongues meeting as he gently pushed her backward on to his desk. His hands outlined the sides of her body while they kissed. Maker, kissing was one of the best sensations ever, he thought. His hips ground against her with an increasing rhythm and desperation, but he still wanted to keep at this for as long as she’d allow.

She pulled away from their kiss and looked upside down at the lamps around the room. “The lights are on. If I—” 

He shook his head. “Don’t you dare change a thing. I want to be able to see you for once. The real you.”

“But someone could walk in here at any moment.” Evelyn’s fear was clearly written in her face.

He gazed down at her. “We both know how much the idea of being caught really sends you. Imagine someone finding the Commander with his tongue so far up the Inquisitor’s quim it’s a wonder he can breathe.”

Evelyn’s body lurched upward underneath him at his words. He grinned. 

“Oh, you bastard,” she whispered, and she dropped her hands to the waistband of her breeches. 

He continued pulling her clothes off and he dropped the pants to the floor. The bottom half of her body was completely displayed in the bright candlelight: the smooth skin, the blonde hair at the junction of her legs, the entrancing smell of her arousal. He lifted her knees up and hooked them over his shoulders. “Careful. If you’re too loud someone might come investigate.” He held her thighs in place with his hands before kneeling down to lick the sensitive flesh, tasting the flavor that he could never mistake belonging to anyone else. He sucked on the little button in the center and grinned when Evelyn tried, and failed, to say something coherent.

It took almost no time at all before Evelyn’s hips began moving up and down in a rapid fashion while she screamed for the Maker’s mercy at the top of her lungs. He had told the guards to stay the hell away from his office that night, but this might get their attention. He couldn’t exactly say the idea of everyone knowing exactly what the Inquisitor and he were to one another didn’t please the fuck out of him. 

When Evelyn’s gyrations slowed down, Cullen wiped his face off on her inner thigh and then stood up, his hands going to the top of his trousers. “I don’t think I can be polite and gentle this time, Your Worship.”

“Cullen, don’t…don’t call me that.”

He leaned over and stared down at her. “I want you to know I know exactly who I’m with right now.” He pulled her body down the desk until her bottom was right at the edge, and then he grabbed the sides of the desk. “You should probably hold on to something.” 

Evelyn locked her hands around his neck and pulled him into a kiss as he thrust inside her. The feeling of her quim squeezing around his cock as he began the ritual of moving in and out made him want to come immediately. The way the hardness of the desk forced their bodies together even closer made the vigorous coupling even more intense.  

He threw his head back and yelled as he came. The peak was so strong he was afraid he was going to collapse on her, his body no longer functioning.

“Cullen,” she whispered. 

“Evelyn,” he said. He pulled out of her and with unsteady legs backed up to the desk chair, then pulled her off the desk and on to his lap. 

“Can we not use the desk any more?” Evelyn asked. “My bed is way more comfortable.” 

“Tomorrow,” he said, and he licked down the side of her neck. “For now we’re going up to mine.”

Evelyn shook her head, her blonde hair coming out of the knot she’d put it in and spilling over her shoulders. “I don’t think I can move.” 

“Well, too bad, because I’m not through with you yet,” he said. He stood up and threw her over his shoulder, before hauling the both of them up the ladder to his loft.

“Anyone comes into your office, they’re going to notice my pants on the floor.”

“Anyone comes into my office, I’m going to loudly point out your pants are on the floor.” He laid her down on his bed and then began undoing the fasteners of her tunic. “This has to go. Now.” Once he had them undone, he gently took it off her and then tossed it on to the floor. “Have I mentioned recently how beautiful you are?”

His cock twitched against her leg and Evelyn burst out laughing. “Andraste’s ashes, Cullen, a person might be forgiven for thinking you’d never had sex before.”

He nuzzled her neck. “Be a little forgiving with me. I haven’t had sex for weeks.”

Her fingers clutched his arms just a little tighter. “You haven’t?” she said.

From the tone of her voice, she clearly expected that he had. How could she not understand the effect she had on him? The effect she had had on him even before he knew it was her? 

He raised himself up again to look at her. “Evelyn. A month ago I discovered I had actually had made love to the only woman I’ve ever wanted this badly. Do you think any other woman holds any appeal for me? I had no idea what I was going to do with the rest of my life if you walked away tonight.” 

Evelyn pulled him down for a kiss. Then she said: “You realize Josephine will be upset she can’t marry me off.”

“Tell her she can organize our wedding party. She’ll be elated.” 

A look of surprise and then fear crossed Evelyn’s face. What, had she really thought he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life with her?

“So we’re going to tell the others?” she said.

Cullen pulled her knees to the side and pushed inside. “Pretty sure Leliana already knows,” he said, and then he started moving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the kudos and comments! I really appreciate each and every one.
> 
> There is going to be one more chapter on this fic.
> 
> itsdavinahyde.tumblr.com for updates


	7. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apparently absolutely nothing stops these two when they really want something.
> 
> Also: timing is everything.

The back of Evelyn’s head hit the wall.

“Careful,” Cullen said, his voice emanating from somewhere in the vicinity of her waist. One of his hands had pinned the hem of her skirt to her hips—and her hips against that very same wall. His other hand was splayed across her thigh, his thumb gently touching the junction between her legs. “You're going to hurt yourself if you're not more careful.”

She stared up at the ceiling and tried to draw breath as she moved her wrists, bound with a velvet tie, forward, and dug her fingers into Cullen’s hair. “You bastard, keep going.”

He chuckled and then she felt his breath on the sensitive skin between her legs again. His thumb gently pulled her folds apart and Evelyn felt his tongue begin to delve in to her folds. 

She wanted to tilt her hips to improve the angle but his hand kept her fast. His mouth began moving quicker, though, and she felt him suck gently on her center.

“Please,” she sobbed.

His head pulled back, his curls slipping through her fingers. His thumb kept worrying the very spot he’d been sucking on. “Are you in a hurry, milady? Worried someone might come home and find you like this?”

She felt her climax approaching. “Yes,” she whispered. 

Cullen got off his knees and undid the front of his trousers as he kissed Evelyn, rocking his hips against her. “Imagine what they’re going to think when they find me taking you up against the wall like a whore,” he whispered.

Her hands, bound at the wrist, splayed against his chest, and she moaned. Why did the idea of being discovered have such an intense effect on her?

He picked her up and opened her legs wide. His hands held her in place as he thrust inside her in one move. His hips began rocking back and forth, his cock keeping her from moving as sure as his hands were.

“Cullen,” Evelyn whined.

“Are you enjoying this, whore?” he whispered. 

She could tell from the sound of his breathing he was close to climaxing himself. “You know I am, ser,” she said and she squeezed her body around his cock.

“You’re so eager,” he said. “I like that.”

The rolling wave of her orgasm rushed over her, becoming stronger and stronger the harder Cullen thrust inside her. “Oh, yes, ser. Yes. Like that. Yes. Yes.” 

“Shhhh,” he whispered, but then he grunted and pushed inside her even harder, his hips lifting her even further off the floor. With one more quick push he finished and then lowered her to the ground. Her feet were unsteady and she fell against his chest. “Watch yourself,” he whispered.

“Too late for that,” she said.

He chuckled again and then swept her up in his arms before turning and depositing her on the bed on the other side of the room. She held up her wrists, still bound by that velvet cord. 

“If you’d be so kind,” she said.

He studied the knot as though he had never seen it before, let alone tied it himself. “Oh, I don’t know. There’s something to be said for having you helpless.”

“Helpless?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “I could get out of this without your help.”

“Not without burning the bed down around you. You’ll have to behave yourself.”

“I always behave myself.” 

He smirked. “Opinions differ on that.”

She laughed and he reached over to untie the band. She immediately got off the bed. “I need to get out of these clothes. I do believe my lover has left quite a mess inside me and it’s dripping out.” 

He kissed her and one of his hands felt the simple material of the dress. “Is it wrong of me to be glad that your maid gave you lots of these dresses?”

“I had a hard time explaining why they would make the perfect wedding gift,” Evelyn said. “I suspect she knows there’s something going on between us.”

Cullen laughed. “Many people have figured it out.” 

They stared at one for a few seconds and then Evelyn moved in to begin kissing him again. 

And then a loud wail start from the other room.

“Well, that’s timing for you,” Evelyn said.

He laughed. “Better now than ten minutes ago. That would have been awkward.” When Evelyn pushed back the sheets to get out, he said, “Stay there. I’ll see to her.”

“Time to get up anyhow.”

“We don’t have anywhere to be.” He got off the bed and hitched up his pants before heading down the hallway to the other bedroom.

He emerged holding their eighteen-month-old daughter over to the bed. The blonde toddler held out her arms toward her mother. She went from Cullen’s arms to Evelyn’s, and once on the bed she immediately snuggled into her mother’s side and her head fell back, mouth open, completely asleep. 

Cullen laughed and went around to the other side of the bed. He curled up behind Evelyn and reached over her hip to stroke their daughter’s curly blonde hair. “By the way, my beloved wife, were you planning on telling me soon? Or did you not know yet?”

“Tell you what?” Evelyn said. 

He moved his hand to her belly. “You’re expecting again.”

Evelyn’s eyes widened as she looked back at him.“I didn’t say anything because it’s only been a day or so since I first suspected. How do you know that? You suddenly sporting mage powers or something?”

He kissed her shoulder. “You really want to know?”

“Yes. Yes, I really do.”

He leaned in toward her ear. “How you taste changes,” he said. 

She started to laugh. “Are you joking me?”

He shook his head. “You must not be very far along.”

“At most four weeks.”

He nuzzled the back of her ear. “I think the taste is different this time. Maybe that means it’s a boy.”

“A little tiny Templar running around? Maker forbid.”

“Maker help us if one of them’s a mage.” 

Evelyn giggled. “Like Uncle Dorian or Aunt Vivienne.”

“There’s a thought.” Cullen snorted with laughter and then kissed the top of her head. “There are days I can’t believe you’re here with me.”

“There is nowhere I’d rather be.” She looked over her shoulder at him. “Although…if we’re going to have two of these little dynamos running around, we’re not going to have much time for each other.” 

The crease between his eyebrows deepened. “Perhaps we can get my niece to babysit more often.” 

Evelyn began to laugh. 

**Author's Note:**

> I think I'm supposed to mention I'm also at itsdavinahyde.tumblr.com. I still don't quite understand the operations there yet though.


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